Kiosk.net

Studios have used outside research for years in order to manage the distribution and manufacture of video and DVD releases, but lately they’ve been turning to some new sources: Netflix queues and Amazon pre-orders. Unlike focus groups and theater grosses, customers of Netflix and Amazon are “voting with their wallets,” according to Calandarlive.com. Netflix users are able to put DVDs in there queues weeks or even months before their release, to be shipped when they become available. Amazon users have the same option with pre-orders, buying DVDs which are shipped once they’re released.

The internet has been useful to studios in a number of other ways, including word of mouth marketing on websites like DVDtalk and TVonDVD.com, and blogs like… kiosk.net. But mostly those other two ones. The websites produce a buzz about certain titles, boosting their overall sales and surprising the studios with hits like “Roswell,” (remember that show?) and cult films like “’Myra Breckenridge.”

One other effect of this development is the importance of institutions like Netflix in terms of influencing sales and influencing what the studios choose to produce. As more and more people choose to get their DVDs through online channels, consumers will also gain more and more control over the products themselves.

Netflix is already mainstreaming the behavior of watching specialty films, Sarandos says. And its influence, he says, should only increase with time.

“With 3 million subscribers, we’re interesting to the studios,” he said. “With 5 million, we’d be meaningful, with more bottom-line impact. With 10 million, we could reshape distribution. If we put a spotlight on less mainstream films, maybe studios would be emboldened to release product that’s more ‘challenging,’ shall we say. Our numbers could affect not only marketing plans but the kind of movies that get made.”

As always, in situations like this, everybody wins. Consumers, because they’re getting what they want, studios because they’re selling more DVDs more effectively, and the go-between, Netflix, because of increased subscribers. This type of personalization can be seen on the websites mentioned above, personal pages developed by logging what the customer has viewed and purchased in the past.

More on the Netflix Queue

Amazon pre-orders appear in blogs like this one.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2005 at 1:48 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.